Portsmouth Defence Perimeter, United Kingdom

(As the grey Pan Pacific Defence Corps Merlin helicopter that is my ride to England, on loan from the RAF, emerges through the rain cloud blanketing the city, I can instantly see why Portsmouth is codenamed 'Camelot' amongst the PPDC. The fifty metre high concrete walls, fixed heavy artillery and patrols of helicopters around the heavily fortified harbour seem almost unnecessary, this far from the Pacific. However many here still remember the reports of the attack upon Cape Town in 2017 ,where a lone Kaiju, having bypassed the radar systems around the Breach, managed to lay waste to half the city before the Jaeger 'Rainbow Warrior', only just out of the training grounds and about to be shipped to Lima, destroyed the creature. As one of the most important PPDC bases outside of the Pacific Rim area, Portsmouth has a strong military presence, if only to put the minds of the British public at rest. As the helicopter lands and I disembark into the freezing rain my current interviewee, Corporal Greg Hailwood, meets me on the tarmac and invites me to join him at the local pub, renamed 'Trafalgar Monarch' after the first, and only British Jaeger, and as we sit down, the looming form of the Kaiju Wall just visible out the window, we begin the interview)

I was sitting right here when the news about Manila came on the TV. I remember the entire place going silent as we saw the 'clean-up squads' at work, saw the mushroom cloud hanging over the surrounding suburbs. Me and the lads never thought we would have to see that sort of thing again. All the scientists said these were freak events, one in a billion chance of ever happening again. The UN though, had a different idea entirely…

You're referring to the Pacific Defence Fleet?

Yeah that load of horseshit. I could see the idea behind it, fight them out at sea so no more civilians have to get killed. Only real flaw I the fact that, at the end of the day, those Kaiju were from the freaking sea! And if Portsmouth FC's continued failures in away games have taught me anything, it's that fighting something where it has the terrain advantage is probably the dumbest move you can imagine. That's like fighting a Russian in Siberia. You're never going to win because they know, and are practically a part of, that environment. A shame everybody forgot that when they were busy setting up the fleet. Most people at the time were convinced that the firepower that a combined naval taskforce could bring to bear would be a lot more effective against a Kaiju than ground and air attack ever could be. A lot of people don't realise that, since World War 2, we just haven't had the old broadside style battleships like HMS Hood or USS Missouri. Ironically most of our naval power comes from the planes on our aircraft carrier, not the wimpy little guns we have on our ships now.

And yet noone noticed that problem?

Not at all. I think everyone was so shaken up about the whole 'Code Blue' incident and the prospect of having to nuke another city that the whole world was jut clutching at straws. The UN just stepped in and did what they could I guess. I guess us Europeans thought ourselves immune to all that; that the monsters had only ever ravaged the Pacific area so far so why should we be scared?

(He sighs)

It didn't last. The Secretary General was very insistent after Manila that we should actually plan a better response, instead of just blindly rushing in, like we did at San Francisco…

I remember the ships coming out of Portsmouth harbour behind us as I stood on the deck of the HMS Montrose. There were so many, flags flying proudly like knights riding to battle. There they all powered out, men on the sides waving at the crowds all standing on the dockside cheering us on and waving a sea of Union Jacks and singing. The HMS Dragon was alongside us, the boys on its main deck unfurling a huge banner depicting a red dragon tearing into a monstrous Kaiju as the HMS Illustrious and the HMS Ark Royal, the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier, steamed past at the centre of it all, the flight deck covered in jets and attack helicopters.

Weren't the Queen Elizabeth class ships not due for another five years?

You would not believe how much money and manpower our military can bring to bear with the threat of giant monsters rears its head.

(He points out of the window at the towering form of the Kaiju Wall)

That was put up in just over a year. If you go down to London you'll find the same thing. Just because the Kaiju are just in the Pacific right now doesn't mean we should get complacent.

Anyway we met up with the rest of the international fleet about ten miles out from the Baja Peninsula. Command figured that the breach must be somewhere off California or Mexico considering the speed that the Trespasser reached the West Coast. It was only a few months later they actually found where the breach was…

How many ships were in the fleet?

Must have been at least a few hundred. The Americans and Chinese alone must have made up half of the ships there. There were all types. Destroyers, a few aircraft carriers, a few dozen small cruisers and a whole extra fleet of conventional and nuclear submarines.

Nuclear?

I know, a bit extreme right? The battle plan was simple really. When the KEAS (Kaiju emergency Alert System- a satellite Kaiju tracking system set up in the wake of the San Francisco attack) brought up the coordinates of whatever Kaiju emerged from the ocean, the submarines were cleared to aim a tactical nuke right at its position.

And the fleets role?

Clean-up duty. That and an attempt to show the people of the world that we weren't just going to lob nukes at every Kaiju to emerge from the Breach. If it came to full naval warfare against a Kaiju, we all figured we could kill it. Even so there was a mood on board the Montrose, and I know after talking to crew of other ships after the attack that this was a feeling shared across the fleet, that we needed a long term solution, not just to throw missiles at every Kaiju. Even after two attacks many were convinced that there would be more Kaiju, and that nuclear weapons just weren't a sustainable option.

When did the Kaiju first appear?

Midnight. We were roused from our bunks as soon as that thing pinged up on the alert system, and we were out on deck, readying weapons and checking the horizon, as the first missile emerged from the deck of the USS Kentucky, lighting up the entire fleet as it rose up into the sky. I remember seeing the crew of the Japanese ship 'Hyuga' spilling out onto their main deck just as the missile launched, a few waving at us as the lights on the other ships all came on in one blinding flash.

It was a few seconds later that we saw the mushroom cloud on the horizon, and I was so glad for the protective goggles every one of us had been given. I've heard the stories of the people blinded in San Francisco by the nuke that killed the Trespasser.

I was just turning back to head inside when the ship's address system came online, and the voice of the captain came crackling out.

"Kaiju inbound." He said simply, and I saw the victorious smiles of my comrade's die and their faces pale. "I repeat,the Kaiju is inbound."

The missile strike failed?

It bloody missed! I don't know how. Maybe the missile itself was faulty or the guidance system failed. At the time I, stupidly, thought that this Kaiju might have some sort of inbuilt anti-missile system so it couldn't be locked onto…

Whatever happened I knew that we didn't have time to fire another missile. The boys in the radar room were already shouting over the radio at us, bellowing that the Kaiju was impossibly fast, that we only had a few minutes before it came at us.

Why couldn't you have fired another missile?

Not at the speed that thing was coming at. By the time we fired another missile we would have taken out half the fleet. No, the only thing that remained was to fight. All aircraft were in the air, all guns and missile tubes loaded and ready to fire, every sailor and marine at their post. As I watched the searchlights sweeping the cold black sea from the bridge alongside the captain, I remember that, for a few seconds, there this weird silence, the only sound the clatter of weaponry being checked and rechecked, and the dull thud of helicopter blades outside. The entire plan had fallen apart. We hadn't expected the Kaiju to attack at night and our orders had been, if it came to that, to make for port and just let the missile do its work.

Why didn't you?

Blame command! They were so geared up for this big victory that they forgot we actually needed to kill the Kaiju first! And all our fancy radar, weapons and equipment proved useless in finding the Kaiju before it wanted to be found, and by then it was too late to turn tail and run.

The radar systems started going crazy jut a second or two before the Kaiju appeared, while the sea outside was rolling and heaving crazily beneath us. We all watched that blip on the screen growing larger and larger and the sea outside getting even higher and wild, as if it sensed the monster out there was definitely not of this world. It just kept getting closer and closer, a bit slower than before, as if the thing was toying with us.

Then it was gone.

The blip just disappeared, only a mile or so from the edge of the fleet. One guy actually breathed a sigh of relief, as if the Kaiju had somehow just disappeared from existence. I remember looking out through the window at the huge form of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an absolutely massive aircraft carrier, stacked full of fighter jets and helicopters, lighting up the area around it with a blaze of spotlights. For a second the sea seemed to calm slightly, and I was about to turn back and tell everyone it was going to be alright when I heard the ping of the radar again, even louder than before, and everyone behind me started shouting.

Then every sound, the whir of the helicopters, roar of the waves, shouts of crewmen all that faded as I heard the most ears splitting roar ever…and it was coming from right below us.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt started turning, as if the crew sensed the danger they were in. But it was too late. The Kaiju tore right through the main deck, its ugly head piercing the flight deck and roaring in triumph. It was only after the remains of the ship sank below the surface and the Kaiju was right in the midst of our fleet that things went crazy. I was already running for the door when the monster tore through the Hyuga and a Chinese gunboat without even breaking stride, before diving below the waves and coming up in the middle of two American cruisers.

I don't know who fired the first shot but when that monster turned its head, those giant yellow eyes staring into every one of us, the smoke from the missile curling off where it had struck, the only sign of any kind of wound a slight bit of blackening on its grey scales, I knew we were all dead.

And then…well all hell broke loose.

Every ship just started firing, all semblance of order or a strategy lost. It was every man for himself now that monster was in the middle of us, able to grab ships in seconds and smash them apart, or just tear gouges out of them and leave them to disappear below the black sea. I saw so many men just disappear under the waves that day, or get caught in the wake of other ships and go under. There was even a group of Chinese sailors, all falling off the sides of their ship, this huge modern cruiser, and the helicopters lashed down to the sides breaking their bonds and pulling those same men down into the depths…

Then a shell slammed into the side of the ship and we realised we were right in the middle of a crossfire. The Kaiju was still tearing its way through every ship it could, but our own shots were going all over the place. I saw the HMS Illustrious take a missile to the stern and disappear under the waves, while one of the French warships, trying to break for land, ploughed right into the Ark Royal and the Kaiju tore its way through both of them. The sky was just full of smoke and flame and the attack helicopters and jets pounding the Kaiju with rockets and missiles. And then the HMS Dragon, in what ah to be one of the bravest moves I've ever seen, drove at full speed at the Kaiju, its crew whooping and shooting off flares as it fired all its weapons at once.

Did it work?

Did it fuck! The Kaiju just reared up and ripped that ship to pieces, and I felt my mind go back to that flag they had made, and the blood-stained rag it had now become as the ship went down.

I don't remember being given a rifle, or when I started just shooting off the portside with my crewmates, but I know that every one of us knew it was useless. Everyone had seen this thing shake off cruise missiles so our little NATO rounds were just no use at all.

But you kept firing?

What else could I do? Our main gun had been destroyed by a stray RPG round from a Russian destroyer and the missiles were all gone. On the other ships I could see other crews doing the same. There were some US Marines firing M16s from the deck of the US Bunker Hill before the Kaiju ripped the ship apart with one sweep of its claws and they went screaming into the sea below.

I don't know how long I had been shooting before we saw the monster dip under the water and then hurl this huge black object at us. It flew overhead, water spraying onto us from it sides, and it took it a second for me to realise one thing.

It was a submarine.

And then there was no time to do anything but scream as the Kaiju pounded toward us, tearing low flying helicopters from the sky and howling in rage. That's when I started running. I threw aside my rifle as the others kept shooting; my last view of my shipmates was the entire deck filled with sailors and Royal Marines, all firing even as a giant claw swept them from the deck.

I was still running as the ship started to come apart under the Kaiju attack and I came out onto the helipad at the stern as the ship's Lynx helicopter was taking off from the crumpling deck, the roar of the Kaiju and the tearing of metal behind me deafening.

It was only when we were airborne, the cabin crammed full of soaking wet marines and crewmen that I dared to look back at the fleet. The pilot was getting us out of there, he said, and frankly I agreed. The battle was lost as soon as the Kaiju appeared, and after I turned to look back and saw the countless ships laid out beneath us, all either on fire or sinking, the Kaiju almost lazily destroying the stragglers ,and later when I heard how half of Cabo was nuked to kill the monster ,that I knew one thing was true about this war…

(He pauses for a second, and gestures towards the poster behind him, depicting the Jaeger Trafalgar Monarch tearing apart the Kaiju 'Acheron')

We needed a new weapon.